Abstract [en]

Scania is one of the leading companies in manufacturing and distribution of heavy trucks, busses and engines for marine and industrial environments. Scania works together with their customers to develop customized solutions. Which leads to a broad variety on Scania’s products. The variety demands a flexible method to allow change. Scania’s solution to this problem is a modular product system. It means that the number of components are restricted but the combination of these generates an almost infinity number of variants. Since every product is unique, the variety also affects production. Scania works with digital test assemblies to secure the final assembly of a new truck.

The MPPAP group at department of chassis assembly does testing to see if the parts fit together. According to today’s digital testing process trucks are tested one by one and each test has two parts, Virtual Build (VB) and Digital Test Assembly (DTA). When the digital assembly testing can be done without deviations, then and only then can the testing in a physical environment start - Physical Test Assembly (PTA).

There is a need today to make the digital assembly testing process more efficient. The goal for this type of testing is to be able to test several trucks simultaneous. This method is not possible today due to lack of possibility to filter data in Delmia. This Master Thesis study was done in order to investigate how the filtering method in Delmia could work, including possibilities, limitations and conditions for implementing this way of working.

The method developed during the study to filter data is based on information and functions that currently are available in existing systems at Scania. This specific method requires all input data to be continuously updated in Enovia (Scania’s PDM-system) and the test leaders at MPPAP have access to it in real time. The method can only be partially implemented today, due to limited input data. With the current limitations and conditions a test was executed to verify the filtering process of three truck models cross members in Delmia.

The study proves that filtering in Delmia is possible with the information and functions that currently are available at Scania. However the advantages with this way of working is not yet proven. They can however be approximated. The reason being it’s still in a prototype stage and has not yet been tested on an entire truck at a digital assembly test.

In order to make testing more efficient regarding the digital assembly testing at MPPAP today, the developed method needs to be tested and evaluated at a larger scale to demonstrate the benefits with existing limitations. When this new way of working is going to be implemented there will be a need for recourses at P&L that can generate and maintain the required input data. A decision to secure resource needs can be taken by management when the method is fully verified.